Comments for Silk and Squalorhttps://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com
An existential crisis, with styleSun, 02 Mar 2014 23:14:51 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.com/Comment on A dress I designed is available on ModCloth! by silkandsqualorhttps://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com/2012/08/09/modcloth-dress/comment-page-1/#comment-103
Sun, 02 Mar 2014 23:14:51 +0000http://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com/?p=131#comment-103Oh my goodnees, Tyger, how did I just now see this? Thank you so much 🙂 The dress does seem to be doing well–it’s sold out a few times, actually! I’m on to my own projects, now. In fact, you were one of my inspirations to take the plunge.

Did you know that I own your dress? I have to confess I don’t wear it much, not because I don’t love it but because (as you might have gathered from this blog) I don’t wear dresses much at all. But the fact that I was moved to purchase it in spite of all this should be taken as the highest praise!

Okay, I’ll stop fawning now. Keep up the fabulous work.

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Sun, 18 Aug 2013 03:13:08 +0000http://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com/?p=131#comment-94I just happened to stumble upon this amazing post! First of all, I know it’s been a year since this post, but i’ll send a wonderful congratulations on being selected anyways! How exciting!!! You’re dress was super cute and I’m so happy that you continued to pursue the challenge. And second of all, a HUGE thank you for the sweet shout out in the post as I am the designer of the Turmeric dress! 😀 I’m so glad that you liked it and I just wanted to say that i hope you and your dress are doing swell!
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Wed, 07 Aug 2013 16:35:15 +0000http://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com/?p=555#comment-90Anna! How great to hear from you! One of your bowties is sitting in a place of honor on my desk as we speak.

I’m guessing one of the things you remember about crowdfunding is that there is suddenly no time to write intelligent responses to lovely, intelligent comments on one’s blog! But I thoroughly agree with you that we should support one another, and wish I’d spent more time reaching out to my kin over the last couple months. No time like the present! I shall send you an (albeit brief for now) email promptly.

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Tue, 06 Aug 2013 19:40:29 +0000http://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com/?p=555#comment-87Such an interesting and complex topic – and so loaded for so many people.
I’m Anna, the designer/creator behind Kreuzbach10. (found this post googling K10) Working out how to word and approach gender in my marketing is something I’ve had to think about a lot. In the end I took a narrower approach on purpose. Not because I don’t want other people to buy my shirts, but because I don’t want to mislead customers about what they are getting when they buy my shirt. I’ve spent a lot of time patternmaking and working on the shape so that they work around things like boobs and hips and waists associated with female bodied persons… be that cis-women, or trans-women or any identity living in a body with a shape associated with female. That was the niche-within-a-niche I picked to explore first, so I feel like I can’t say ‘this works on both female and male bodies’, because there is a good chance that the shirt actually won’t fit a male bodied person who buys it. I want to be inclusive, but not to the point of misrepresenting the product, which is a difficult thing to navigate.

If someone is unsure, I’m more than happy to liaise over email, send them a shirt to try, and refund if it just doesn’t work on their body. I should probably try to convey that openness a bit better so we’re a bit more welcoming for people outside the gender binary.

So far I haven’t had any awful criticism, which is nice, but I’m always open to polite constructive criticism. I try, but I know with something as complex as this there is a good chance that I won’t always get it right the first time, and I want to learn and make sure I do it better the next time.

Scouts Honor looks really cool. If you wanted to chat about the whole crowdfunding thing I’m more than happy to talk about my experience. I’m not an expert, but happy to offer what I learnt by doing it! I think its really wonderful that this niche market is blossoming in so many directions and really think we should all support each other to really improve the options that are out there for people! I’m a bit shitty at answering emails promptly, but if you want to get in touch I’ll try – anna [at] kreuzbach10.com

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Sun, 24 Feb 2013 20:54:21 +0000http://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com/?p=555#comment-63This is always such a tough wording issue. It’s great to see the list of different wordings that you’ve collected during your research. Many of the garments that I create are designed androgynously. I have a wide range of genders amongst my customers, and I LOVE this so much. They just shop for a certain aesthetic and care little who the clothes are intended for. I can’t quite figure out how to encourage this through wording, or how to market my clothing as such. Luckily, my androgynous/gender-free clothing has attracted a lot of gender variance naturally.

Right now I try to show the garments on a traditional female form as well as a male one and give the measurements of the garments, so the customer can decide if the garment will work for their own body type. I also use wording that goes something like “This top looks great on any gender.” instead of saying “both genders” or “men and women” or something else that enforces a bi-gendered mentality.

]]>Comment on Marketing androgynous clothing: language choice by khttps://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com/2012/12/09/language/comment-page-1/#comment-60
Mon, 10 Dec 2012 17:58:06 +0000http://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com/?p=555#comment-60Words are hard, but the likely triggering comment on the Saint Harridan site seems almost trollish in their critique of SH’s word usage. As the next commentor noted, they used “born female-bodied” not plain vanilla “female-bodied” and while that isn’t as far as the language that the first would like, assigned female at birth, there are those on the other side of the political divide who would argue against that language, and efforts to be inclusive mean making compromises. Besides the fact that in some 80% of pregnancies, gender and sex are assigned before birth through the use of sonograms, so really, assigned female prior to birth. Then there is their notion that genitalia has little to do with how a suit fits. Oh sir, how wrong you are. Those of us lacking appendages between our legs actually do fit pants differently than those with appendages, just as those of us with appendages on our chests – highly correlated with genitalia, though not a correlation of 1, obviously – fit jackets and shirts differently. Not all male-assigned bodies are alike, not all female-assigned bodies are alike, but there are correlative differences between them that guide fashion design. I’m not convinced that rhetoric and reality are the same, and certainly by changing our rhetoric we can alter some degree of reality, but I’m a phenomenologist when it comes down to it. And while I obviously can’t sum up what in my dissertation is about a chapter long explication on the relationship between cognition, knowledge, and the body in a blog comment, I do think that this embodied aspect is overlooked by a lot of queer activists.
Anyway, I like the SH language, and I like the MM language, and while the other four are also marketed towards me, I appreciate aiming more towards SH/MM style marketing.
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Wed, 07 Nov 2012 16:10:15 +0000http://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com/?p=347#comment-46[…] couple weeks ago, DapperQ posted about another new designer doing menswear-style shirts cut for women. They’re called Kreuzbach 10, and they’re in the midst of an Indiegogo campaign that […]
]]>Comment on Keep at it by tsotsehttps://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/keep-at-it/comment-page-1/#comment-44
Fri, 02 Nov 2012 02:31:37 +0000http://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com/?p=488#comment-44The fit did matter…at least to your grandmother(waste not,want not) I wore it one time…and then put it in the back of my closet. I think I got a green ribbon(3rd place or 4th) Certainly not a blue. Keep up the good work. I am enjoying seeing your creations.
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Sun, 14 Oct 2012 01:53:16 +0000http://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com/?p=488#comment-41Oh no! Why did the fit even matter? Did you have to wear it to the competition? Does this mean you got a red ribbon instead of blue….or was this before everyone got ribbons? I’ve been scarred by plenty else, though thankfully not in the realm of sewing. Yet, anyway 🙂
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Sat, 13 Oct 2012 01:52:36 +0000http://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com/?p=488#comment-40How great that you are thinking about going into business. I think you’ll be a great success. I was in 4-H for a few years. Your grandmother Myers closely watched over the skirt I made to be entered into the fair competition. She wasn’t satisfied with how it fit (It didn’t have a zipper, fastened with snaps along the side) Anyway…Gma decided to add elastic to the waistband and,of course, I was marked down for that little addition…even tho it made perfect sense to my mother. See what you escaped from not being in Clothing in 4-H? It might have marked you for life. 🙂
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